[Being Chris]

We just returned home to Cleveland after fifty days of driving, volunteering, networking, learning, talking, and listening. In commemoration and celebration of Being And Doing’s maiden voyage, I would like to present some of the beliefs and ideas that were either reinforced or newly developed over the course of our trip. While I believe that I can speak for all three of us on most of these insights, I take full responsibility for everything written here (just in case). Also, sorry it’s a little long, I hope its worth the time!

Racine, OH (Elisa Young, Guy Rose, Cindy Parker)

There is no such thing as an issue that is too big for your time and energy. If there is injustice taking place in your community (be that immediate or global), disregarding it as something out of your control is a poor excuse. For change to begin to occur, all it takes is for one person to see a problem and to have the courage to openly talk about it. Complacency is the enemy of true progress.

Money and jobs are extremely strong motivating factors. Sometimes, they are even stronger than necessary biological factors (such as clean oxygen and pure water). This is not to say that earning a living is unimportant (quite the contrary), but when money becomes an ends as opposed to a means, a necessity as opposed to a resource, the importance of money becomes inflated and it casts a shadow over the real issues at stake.

As our worldview has become more and more scientific and scrutinizing, we have collectively lost touch with our connection to the natural world. The fact that “nature” has taken on the meaning of “the place where people do not live” is really telling of how humanity has mentally separated itself from the earth. Since, objectively speaking, we are living, organic beings, it is becoming increasingly important for us to see ourselves as part of the world and its processes as opposed to some special phenomenon that can do what it pleases without consequence.

Simple living is honest living – or – at the very least, simple living takes less energy to defend itself as honest living.

Alliance, OH (Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Seminar)

There is a lot of talk today about how hope lies with the youth and the upcoming generations. I believe that this is very true. However, I do not think they are going to fix things in the manner that the powers-that-be will expect or actually welcome. The young people of today are not going to lead by having their hands held; they are going to lead by holding the hands of the older generations and showing them how to understand the world differently.

In popular culture, young people are portrayed as semi-unconscious, selfish, catty, arrogant, and dismissive. Granted, caring about things is not actually considered as cool as getting a new iPhone, and a lot of young people today tend to put up a front of nonchalant self-confidence. But, when a high school sophomore is given the chance to speak his or her mind without the fear of being critiqued or negated, he or she is surprisingly aware of the problems in the world and wants nothing more than to talk about the solutions. All we need to do is to give the individual kids more credit, and put out of our minds that the music and reality shows popular among the youth are indicative of who is listening to and watching them. The creators of popular culture are all business executives and producers.

Honest discussion needs to be fostered by a willingness to learn from the innocence of children and youth.

Philadelphia, PA (Cradles to Crayons Philly)

In developing a strategy, it is important to use a model insofar as it can help you conceptualize an idea, but the specifics have to be catered to the unique needs of your personal project.

For a nonprofit to be successful, all you need are a small corps of highly dedicated, energetic, and confidant individuals who are willing and wanting to expend their energy on an important cause. Once you have this base, donations and volunteers naturally gravitate to the good work being done. It is definitely a constant process of input and output that needs to be thoroughly maintained, but once the cogs are set spinning and a vision is shared, an organization that works to better the world will grow and develop simply because it is truly needed.

A person can be so successful as to be the envy of everyone around them, but monetary and material success does not equate to fulfillment. Accumulation does not make a person feel like they are impacting the world around them, which is a necessity if what one desires is existential solace (commonly spoken of as peace of mind). If it is peace of mind that you are interested in, give of yourself to help someone else have physical peace; it is then that you can be made aware of your own importance in the world and you can feel calmed.

Boston, MA (Cradles to Crayons Boston, Zamforia Industries)

When an organization grows to a certain size, stability becomes just as important as growth and development. More people who believe in and advocate for the mission of the organization are needed to sustain what has been developed thus far so that further development will have a solid base on which to stand. The mission and purpose of the organization needs to be communicated simply and clearly so that, as more people become involved, the ideals behind the group are not lost as it becomes more and more standardized.

Volunteer labor is vital to organizations that rely on it. However, if people do not take their work seriously because they think that volunteer labor is somehow unimportant or bottom-of-the-rung work, they can be more of a hindrance than a help.

No matter how much work is done to help people who are in need, the problem grows just as fast, if not faster, than the solution can handle. It seems like there will one day be a tipping point where we all need to start helping each other, or no one will be in a position to help each other.

Kindness begets kindness. If you are welcomed by a person or a group of people, and you in turn are welcoming to them, a system of mutual desire to care for one another can develop. All it takes is an earnest desire to learn from one another and to make the fleeting moments that you share beneficial to both parties.

Bar Harbor, ME (Friends of Acadia, Acadia National Park Veg Crew)

As the human population and the spread of civilization grows, it is increasingly important for our natural havens to be looked after and maintained. Development continues to take over new land, adding to the development that has taken place over the past few centuries, and the surface area of the earth isn’t exactly growing with it. With this in mind, as human civilization spreads, natural beauty and diversity is at risk. Some people might not see this as a problem, but those who value the experience of feeling small when compared to the grandeur of an un-manipulated mountain, it is an enormous problem.

You are never too old or too tired to be needed or productive. In fact, the more you disregard that sentiment and get out to work on something you believe in, the younger you act and feel. As long as you make yourself something of import, no matter how big or how small, you will be rewarded with increased energy and vitality because you have a sense of and objective examples of your impact on the world around you.

When it comes to working for a good cause, age is no longer a factor – in regards to actual physical ability AND intergenerational respect.

It is important to be aware of the highly-publicized problems in the world today (such as climate change), but they should not drown out the less-publicized problems (such as invasive plant-life). If we are to be the mature species that we ought to be after however many thousand years of development (and however many million years of evolution), we have to be able to see all problems as important and all solutions as necessary.

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So, there you go. Some insights that are probably really obvious and some that might be a bit more obscure. These are just some thoughts that I ruminated over as I thought about each location that we spent time in over that past six weeks. But, what is the one over-arching theme that we have experienced from day one until today?

The current that is flowing beneath the surface of our everyday experience is a crying out for redefinition. We need to redefine our position in the world (i.e., our families, communities, globe, and universe) and see ourselves as all-purpose tools for Good, and there are a lot of people out there today who are already leading that charge.